


who waits forever anyway

by TheRangress (orphan_account)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: AU, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 00:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3630072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TheRangress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's dead.<br/>While Torchwood rebuilds, Ianto learns just how hard living with that can be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who waits forever anyway

Jack wasn’t there.

Ianto had a daze to him, like he’d lost blood, or was permanently tuning out background noise. Yes. It was all background noise— like Gwen talking to him, or the words in the file he held, or a visitor to the tourist office. The world was slowly fading into background noise. Up to Jack’s office, put down the coffee cup, turn to say something witty, already starting to feel something for that smile— empty chair.

Jack was gone.

Then, Ianto would grab the coat _(he’d died in it)_ and bury himself away until Gwen called out a Rift alert. A smile and a nod to hide from the concern in her eyes, and then he was nothing but business. The world went on ending every day, went on the way it always had, and none of it was the same at all.

Jack was dead.

~

Life shifted, into a world where the only hints of Gwen ever there for Rhys were steam on the bathroom mirror and food out of the cupboard, into a world where everything, suddenly, had changed. The Hub welcomed them back regardless, Ianto pulling on his old denim jacket and Gwen’s head bowed. Another long day, blood on everyone’s hands and that other world barely surviving.

“You all right?” she asked softly, as he stopped to get the coffee for two.

“Yeah.”

The day had been too long, too filled with blood. No compromise to be found, despite Gwen clamoring and shouting for understanding. _Since_ , she had only been more fire and passion. _Since_ , he had been only more stoicism and duty. She would burn herself up in belief. He would collapse in silence.

“Good old Ianto." She pushed her hair out of her face and reached for a work station, still set for Tosh's height. “And I’m bleeding.”

A week and a half now they’d been alone. Ianto had managed to avoid any injury, but it had taken half-catalogued alien tech to keep Gwen off crutches. In a day or two, they’d go down fighting, and Torchwood would fall at last. But they were ready for that.

“Well,” she chirped, “Looks like the Rift’s going to be quiet for a bit. I think you’re getting pretty handy with the medical thingies, too, so if you don’t mind—”

He reached to hand her coffee. They’d both taken to industrial strength these days. There, on the table, was his black mug of pale coffee, Gwen’s black coffee in a pastel striped mug, and the blue striped one that…

"I keep making him coffee."

Gwen’s hand took a tight grip on his shoulder. “You always stick to the routine, Ianto.” Her words were gentle as she took the mug away, tossing out the coffee and throwing the mug behind it. Shattering Jack's mug. “You always were good for keeping us grounded. But, I mean, when I first joined you kept forgetting me.”

“I kept getting you Suzie’s coffee.” _Two._ How hard was it to remember _two_? Just remember two, and he didn’t have to think about _why_.

But now there were blue striped fragments in the trash can, and somehow that hurt most of all.

She clapped him on the back again, then took her coffee and smiled. He couldn't help but mirror her pretenses.

But once, they'd been real. Once, Jack had been waiting. And he'd thought things were bad then, and they _had_ been. But—

“Come on, then.” She pressed his own coffee into his hands, head tilted and still smiling. “Ianto. Come back to me.”

“Yes,” he said, trying to focus on the feel of the mug in his hand, the here and now. Not the shattered bits of then. Gwen nodded, satisfied, and walked away.

“You’re limping,” he called after her.

“Oh? _Oh._ ”

~

“Martha Jones asked if she could come here,” Gwen said, as he ran the scanner along her ankle. Corpses were easier than coworkers.

“I suppose that would mean Mickey, too,” he said casually, flinching from the screen. They'd met Mickey just after the Medusa Cascade, and embarrassed Jack until Martha's sister stepped in. And at the funeral, of course. Gwen’s face contorted.

“ _Ooh._ Yeah, that looks nasty. Back to the Sprain… Drain? No. Er. Twist… Joint! Joint… no, I’ve got nothing. Completely blank.” She looked up to him, nose wrinkled in thought.

He _missed_ rhyming names. Banter. Funny how quickly you forgot. “Ankle Blankle.”

She laughed as he turned to get the Ankle Blankle from the cupboard: a flat gold rhombus, some sort of soft metal, with a black disc in the middle. He was smiling.

“I told her yes.” Gwen met Ianto’s eyes evenly. “We need Martha, Ianto. Not just because we can’t do this, just the two of us, but because I don’t know how much longer we could manage even _if_ we were enough. Look at you.”

“Yeah.” He should have been relieved, glad.

So his Torchwood was going to die quietly, changing into something new, but still haunted by his personal ghosts. The anger didn't leave his chest. Ianto Jones, jack-of-all-trades for Torchwood Three, was quiet, reserved. His only true emotion was annoyance.

But didn’t he have the right to some emotions? Didn’t he, after all this, have the _right_?

But he stayed silent while watching the bones of Gwen’s ankle repair, then watched her go to file reports and went to work out how they’d arrange things for Martha and Mickey.

After all, his Torchwood had died with Tosh, with Owen…

With Jack.

~

Jack laughed, long and loud.

“Well then, Mr. Jones,” he said, a casual arm around a shoulder. “If that’s what you think, we’ll just have to put you in the cells too.”

“Terrifying,” Ianto declared with a grin.

There was a cool breeze in the air, making Jack’s coat suitably dramatic and mussing his hair. On a whim he nearly never indulged, Ianto put a hand to the muss and kissed him.

“Well then,” Jack said slowly, hand slipping around the waist. “I think we might be able to waive the cell time, for… good behavior.”

“That,” Ianto informed him, leaning in, “is extortion.”

It was a lovely day, trudging through an open field looking for things. _Something_ had fallen through the Rift, and was now causing time disturbances that had resulted in someone’s pants, several birds, and a Roman Legion, along with some very angry Celts.

Gwen and the police were busy rounding up the very, _very_ angry Celts.

And everything was just starting to be a sort of all right again, so for a moment the time disturbances just had to wait. There was flirting to be done.

“You know, for all your _supposed_ moral objections to this ‘extortion’…” Jack smiled, running his fingers along Ianto’s neck. “You sure seem to be enjoying it.”

“I didn’t say I had moral objections." They were well-practiced by now, Ianto leaning in and putting a hand on Jack's chest _just_ so. "I said it _was_ extortion.” He tilted his head yet closer, nearly lip to lip, and whispered “So, are you still putting me in the cell?”

Jack smiled, and—

The smell of burnt grass, a slight tremor in the ground. They pulled apart, crouched to the ground, hands to guns. Smoke gently wisped where the shot had landed.

A broad-shouldered figure, burns on the arm, fell to the ground. Panting heavily, the newcomer tried to push himself up.

“Identify yourself!” Jack barked. Ianto spotted the device, a glint of green half-buried in the dirt.

“They’re coming,” he breathed, head pressed to the ground. “For the machine. They’ll kill you too…”

The man laughed. It was a haunting laugh, all the more so for how suddenly it _stopped._

A second figure stepped through. This one looked to be a woman wearing some high-collared uniform, cradling a blocky gun to herself.

“Well, Aristodemos,” she said, kicking at the figure on the ground with a shining boot. “So I’ve got you at last. Pity. And I was nearly getting to like you.”

“Identify yourself,” Jack repeated, a more subdued hardness this time. Offset, though, by the click of his gun.

The woman sighed. “Oh, there’s more of you. Well then.”

Ianto stood slowly, Jack reaching for eye contact. They were well-practiced by now. Jack would play the decoy…

She turned and fired straight into Ianto’s chest.

~

Martha Jones made herself at home slowly. A few days later, Mickey Smith arrived, and acted like he’d been Torchwood all his life.

It was easy enough to get back in the habit of making Martha's cappuccinos, but this time around she was a permanent fixture. She smiled when Ianto first handed her one, explaining that he’d bought the cup painted with birds especially for her as he walked away.

Mickey claimed he could handle his own caffeine, but generally Ianto doctored forgotten tea and pressed nearly-black coffee into his hands.

Gwen got to go home to Rhys again, but Ianto trashed his flat and moved to the Hub on the premise someone ought to. Desks slowly accumulated scattered papers, neatly taped-up sonnets, gifts and curios. The new Torchwood was still unsteady, still had to survive Gwen and Martha's invisible power struggle, but it was strong. Maybe it would survive.

Slowly, Ianto slipped up less and less. Martha, not Jack. Four, not three. Not five.

~

Jack’s office was still empty.

Close to three weeks after she'd arrived, Martha beckoned Ianto there. Funny. Over a month now, and the daze was still in the back of his head. It was stronger in the office, the coat still hanging and the desk untouched. If she wanted to change _that_ , then he just might break.

“You all right?” Martha stood against the wall, mug clasped in both hands.

“Yes. Of course I’m all right. You wanted me?” Why on earth he kept on pretending, Ianto didn’t know. He trusted Gwen, he trusted Martha, and he knew _perfectly well_ that lying just didn’t work. Someday, he would have to stop. But not today. Today he was fine.

Martha nodded, with a thoughtful curl of her lip, and stepped closer. “Look, I know this is indelicate, but… I think we’ve got to settle who’s going to be in charge now. Formally.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “And I’m guessing you want my advice on whether it should be you or Gwen?”

Gwen was so assured that she should command, always so convinced of what she thought was right. Martha hardly noticed as she took the lead, laying out the plan and giving her battlefield orders. They didn't say a word about it, but their previous friendship had faded fast. Of course, protocol said that with two years experience over Gwen, the job went to Ianto. Even though he didn't want it, not in the least, he couldn't help but resent how everyone seemed to overlook that part.

“Your _opinion._ But, yes.” She sighed and took a deep drink. “Right. It’s been a long day.”

“Ah, UNIT didn’t give quite the full Torchwood experience?”

“And I thought the _Doctor_ was difficult!” They smiled broadly. Martha lifted her cup to him before draining it. “So. Any advice before I bring it up to Gwen?”

 _Then_ was a bit too tied up in Tosh and Owen for him to like to linger, a bit too connected to dashing grins and…

It had been a disaster. Gwen convinced it was her place to lead, Owen snarling his accusations and threats, Tosh's reminders that she had seniority forgotten and ignored, Ianto trying to hide and forcing the matter by turn. Chaos, and the world lucky they'd realized their mistake in time. How many had died because they hadn't been able to agree?

“You’ll never get her to think you should be in charge,” he said slowly, “Once she decides something is _right_ , I think she’d destroy us all just to stick to it. Up to you what side of that argument you want to be on. When she and… I used to be the go-between, when they butted heads too much.”

“This is going to be messy, isn’t it?” Martha closed her eyes, shook her head, and smiled. “You know when you look at your life and wonder _how_ your choices could possibly have led you here?”

“Usually I can tell quite easily.” He reached to take her mug, pressing their hands together for a moment. He was struck— at Martha's age, he'd still been the shy junior researcher desperately trying to catch the eye of the up-and-coming field agent. What was she doing here? “I’ll get you more coffee?”

“God, yes.” She ran a hand through her hair. “How much of this stuff have I been drinking…”

“Well, since I make it and all, an average of—”

“No! No, I don’t want to know.”

“Because then you’ll feel guilty and cut down?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll make sure you never know, then.”

Walking away, Ianto spared a glance for the coat. Martha followed his eyes.

“We all miss him.”

“Gwen didn’t tell you what happened, did she?” He paused, looking out the window at Gwen and Mickey hunched over a computer screen. Either they were about to get a Rift alert, or one of them had gotten distracted by the internet again.

Mickey had a talent for finding things that were downright _disturbing._

“Then what did happen?”

He could have told Martha. All she needed to do was ask Gwen— soon enough she would. It was a wonder she hadn't already, really. Someday, she'd know. But he couldn't say it. He'd been a liar too long.

“And,” he said, “Gwen led Jack lead because he belonged here. You _don’t_. Not yet, at least. I’m not sure you can convince her you should be in charge.”

Martha watched him go, but she didn’t ask Gwen that day, and so Ianto went on lying still.

~ 

Ianto knew something was _wrong_ when he woke up and Jack was crying.

He struggled to sit up, to remember why he’d blacked out. “M’fine,” he said, “I’m fine…”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. There was a cool breeze in the air, mussing his hair. He smiled, but something was wrong. His smile was wrong.

“Gwen?” There was a pain in his stomach, a dull ache and then a burn that sent him gasping, Jack saving his head from a sharp collision with the ground. No, Gwen hadn’t been there, had she?

“No. No, Gwen’s fine.”

“What happened… Jack. Jack, I was _shot._ ” He pulled himself up by Jack’s rumpled collar, a yell at the pain escaping.

Jack pressed Ianto to his chest and shushed him. The gentle rock sent Ianto’s worries into overdrive. Jack was wrong. He was crying, with no flirt or joke or grin to offset the worry. His fingers were pressed a little too hard to Ianto's neck.

“Jack,” he hissed, “what’s happened?”

“I’ll miss you.” There was something almost giddy in Jack’s voice, even as it broke. “And I’m sorry. Tell— tell Gwen too. And anyone else you can think of. I’m sorry.”

Ianto was the one holding Jack up now, and the pain in his stomach had faded down— now just a strong ache, now dull twinges, now nearly gone, and—

“Jack, have you— ” Something was wrong, so wrong, and the possibilities were too much to even be spoken. He pulled away, reaching a hand to Jack’s face, Jack’s pale face, pale face and limp body. Jack’s same old grin. Now he grinned.

“I saved you,” he breathed, “I couldn’t save them, I couldn’t save— but I can save _you_ , Ianto.”

“You’ll come back.” Dying. Jack was dying, wasn’t he? Dying in Ianto’s place. And desperately, he said, “You _always_ come back.”

Ianto could _see_ the life draining out of Jack’s face, could feel the moments before his final collapse. Nausea rose fast through his throat, but Ianto held steady, still focused on Jack’s weak smile.

“Last thing I’ll see,” Jack said, like it was _funny._ He was fading fast, barely able to keep his eyes open. No. This couldn't happen.

“What did you _do,_ Jack?” Come on. He always came back. Always. Jack would close his eyes, and then he would _open them again_ and ask if he’d really said that and then—

“Loved you.” Jack’s breathing was so _strained_ now, and he looked almost like he had after— after Abbadon, when— “And I’m not sorry.”

“I’m sorry!” His eyes were closed. Had he stopped breathing? Soon he'd start again. Ianto wasn't crying. “And I love you, I love you, _don’t die_ …”

He would come back. He would come back.

He _always_ came back.

And so neatly, he laid Jack down beside him. Ianto straightened his collar, and ran his fingers through windswept hair, and waited.

 

“Ianto, Ianto.” Gwen gently tapped Ianto on the cheek, and smiled weakly when she saw he was awake. “Where’s Jack?”

~

He didn’t realize until he’d dragged Mickey back to safety.

Because they’d been standing right next to each other during the explosion, both been thrown to the ground, and then... Mickey, lying there on the table as Martha shouted, was blood and burns, and Ianto turned away. Gwen was still on the other side of the giant swirling portal of doom, and on this side, the Hub was unbelievably quiet.

Mickey was broken and bloody, and Ianto… and Ianto felt fine, aside from the rising pit in his stomach.

He really shouldn’t have.

Martha was talking to Mickey, assuring and berating by turns, no mind to the world outside that table and medical bay. So Ianto stepped away to take count of his wounds. He _had_ to have wounds. His clothes were singed and tattered and bloody, so beneath them… (He made sure he didn’t pause to observe that this was his _red_ shirt, the one he’d stubbornly ignored even as he’d slowly started to wear bits and pieces of the suits again. The suits had been for Jack first.) Unscathed.

Come on. He couldn’t have… he had to have been hurt before. Even a scratch. Something to prove that the knot in his throat was wrong. Please.

But those first weeks, Gwen had been battered, and he had been completely unscathed. She’d joked about his luck and he’d choked back the cost of that. Martha had proclaimed him incredible, walking out of a fistfight like that. And now, walking away from an explosion that had shattered the wall like sugar glass— and Martha was snarling at Mickey that he couldn’t get away from her that easy— without even a scratch.

Ianto backed away, mindlessly rummaging through the desks for something that might—

Oh, let him have to explain this to Martha.

There was a drawer, and he shut his fingers in it, hard as he could.

It _fucking hurt._

Swearing under his breath, Ianto grabbed his fingers and watched them. Purple and swollen, and it was a _coincidence_ , something else was going to explain why he was alive and it was fine, he wasn’t—

His fingers didn’t hurt anymore. In a moment, the bruising faded and they were just normal fingers. Good as new.

So he slammed them in the drawer again.

~

Martha Jones was getting downright antsy.

Mickey was fine, she told herself, or he was going to be anyway. She wasn’t careless— if he’d left stable condition, she’d have gotten a message to her earpiece. This was just looking through the Hub, less than a minute away if she dashed. It wouldn’t do Mickey any good for her to sit uselessly at his bedside.

Besides, she needed to look for Ianto.

If he’d been caught in the explosion too, his injuries could be serious even without knowing it. She wouldn’t have put hiding them for Mickey’s sake past him, either. That was just what Ianto was like. Hiding, though. That, that Martha Jones wouldn’t stand for.

Hunched over her desk, Martha tapped from security cam to security cam, pausing only to note that the giant swirling portal of doom was still giant and swirling.

Of course he was there. She should have guessed.

 

Over the last month, Jack’s office had remained untouched, the only shrine or grave they had.  Martha’d found herself up there a few times, wondering how he’d survived Torchwood or berating him for going and dying. Caught glances of Gwen doing paperwork up in there, Ianto with a cup of coffee, even Mickey once or twice.

So it made sense she’d find Ianto silently rocking in the corner, Jack’s coat crumpled to his chest.

“Hey,” she said, kneeling down. “Can I check you?”

He looked up at her— absolutely no apparently injury on the face or hands— and laughed.

“Think I’ve got that handled, thank you.”

“And… what does that mean?” Something was wrong, dread rising up Martha’s throat as Ianto slowly stood.

“You don’t need to panic,” he said, reaching under the coat for— handgun. Martha tried to knock it from his hand, but he’d been expecting her. He pushed Martha away and—

Oh. _Oh_ , and she was backing away. No, _no._ This was too horrible. Too surreal. She couldn’t take it in, couldn’t accept it. _No._

And Ianto took a deep breath, then looked up at her.

“You’re— ” Alive. _Immortal?_

“Yeah,” he said, staring down and holding the coat tight in trembling hands.

Martha crouched beside him, sliding the gun away. “Jack?”

“He died.” Ianto pulled the coat up to his chin, gaze still fixed on Martha’s shoes. “I died first. I died and he…”

“Did this?” It all made sense, too much knife-twisting sense. She put a hand on his arm. Still alive.

Last time she’d been here, it had been Owen. She’d only been an observer, not really a part of it, but what she’d seen… and Jack too, from the bits she’d seen or her mum and Tish had talked about.

“Why’d he do it? _Why_ would he do that, Martha?” His tears were choked back, something in his eyes burning dark. “How could he _be_ so selfish?”

She almost gave him an answer, before holding back the words. She almost told him maybe Jack hadn’t known. But no. She’d spent enough time with the angry, the betrayed, the desperate. Enough time being them. “I don’t know.”

“He knew. He must have. The way he…” For a moment she thought he was about to tear the coat apart. But no. He fell apart quietly, and she had nothing more to give than arms tight around and a shoulder to cry into.

“I hate him,” Ianto said, voice rough. “I hate that selfish bastard. _He_ deserves this. Wouldn’t wish it on a murderer, but _I’m_ fair game, am I? What is the _fucking point_ of me being alive? Without…" He softened. "...without him. I hate him. I still _love_ him. _Bastard_.”

Just minutes ago, she’d been desperate to save Mickey. How far did that desperation, that anger go? _This_ far? It made her mouth go dry to think anything could. Jack couldn’t have _meant_ this. How could he?

Slowly, slowly, he laced the fingers of one hand into hers. She looked up.

“I’m going to live forever,” he said, slow and even.

Martha considered if she could say it. He seemed to expect something from her. “Jack didn’t.”

They didn’t dare meet each other’s eyes, hands pulling apart.

“You’re suggesting I do this to someone else."

“Would you?”

He said nothing, wiping down his red eyes with his charred sleeve. “Doesn't matter. We don’t know how.”

This— Martha watched him bury his face in the coat, still softly rocking and choking on his tears— was so far beyond her. Death she knew, how to fight and how to heal, how to live against all odds. Doctors fought death. Immortality had to be where their domain ended.

She thought, now, she knew why the Doctor had never been able to face Jack until he had to.

“Do you want me to stay, or..?” He’d quieted slightly, and Martha finally believed this was reality.

But what could she _do_ about it?

“I need to get Gwen.” He stood, turning from her and slowly hanging the coat back up. For a moment he still stood there, straightening and straightening it.

“Ianto, I— ” Martha stood up, hands folded behind her back.

He turned towards her, smile small and polite beneath red eyes. “Yes?”

“It’s just that…” She reached to wipe the tears and pieces of charred shirt from his face. “See, when I travelled with the Doctor, he took me to this place in the future— New New York. Well, couple more News in there. Kind of a dump honestly… Anyway. There was… this giant _head._ In a jar, with tentacles. And he was dying— I saw him die. They called him the Face of Boe, and the thing is, the weird thing— it turns out… that’s what they called Jack when he was younger. So the Doctor and me, we figured somewhere along the line… Jack turns into this giant head and starts calling himself the Face of Boe.”

“But Jack’s dead,” Ianto said, hesitantly following her train of thought, turning the implications over in his head. “So you’re telling me this…”

“Because maybe _you’re_ the Face of Boe. In his honor, or because I just told you."

“Right, then.” He nodded sharply. “If I ever turn into a giant head, Face of Boe it is. I should get Gwen.” As he stepped through the doorframe, Martha gripped his shoulder tightly.

“The Face of Boe— he had a secret, too. For the Doctor.”

“What sort of secret?”

Martha paused. It would sound callous, right then, when he might have been the most alone of anyone. “ _You are not alone._ ”

 But Ianto smiled at her and promised he’d pass it along. She watched him walk away, then went to sit beside Mickey.

The thing was, though, that _if Ianto hadn’t been immortal_ … would Mickey have survived?

Martha couldn't help but be grateful.

~  

The very last Celt safely eating curry in the cells, Gwen collapsed beside Ianto on the sofa and grabbed his hand tight.

“He’s dead." Ianto turned to her. "He’s… he’s _dead._ ”

“He’s Jack, though.” Desperation ached through her words. It rang hollow, with the heavy _certainty_ echoing in his soul. After everything else that had happened to him, why not this?

“For _me_ ,” he spat.

“Ianto— ”

Hand yanked away, his shoulders were bowed. Tears stung his eyes, his breath caught, and suddenly the last fragments of his unsteady composure fell away, and Ianto came under the sway of choking sobs.

Gwen wrapped her arms around him, head pressed to his shoulder. The soothing motions of her fingers and soft shushes meant nothing. “It’ll be all right, Ianto.”

“No, it _fucking_ well won’t,” he forced out, tears dripping down his nose. “He’s gone this time. Really gone. Can you get that through your head?”

“Jack _always_ comes back.” She sounded like some schoolteacher, like he was just a child. Sharply, he pulled from her.

“Not _this_ time.” He was so heavy, like everything that had happened was inside him now. It took everything he had to keep breathing, to try to talk to Gwen instead of scream and sob and lie there, gasping for air and waiting for nothing.

Everything he had, which wasn’t very much anymore.

“We _will_ fix this,” she insisted. “We’ll get him back.”

“Like Suzie? Like Owen?” She hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen Jack. “He _knew_ , Gwen. _He knew!”_ But she’d been the one to tell them there’d been only clothes in dust. He hadn’t seen that; she hadn’t wanted him to.

“We aren’t letting him. Do you hear me, Ianto?” She turned his face towards her, holding him by the chin. Smiling, she wiped away his tears as her own fell. “We _won’t_ let him go.”

Couldn’t she understand? He was gone. Gone. _Gone._ He never wouldhave acted that way if he’d thought there was even a chance. Not admitted to love.

Gwen grabbed his wrists and looked up, wide-eyed.

“You and me, we’ll save him, Ianto.”

“Yeah.” He turned away, pulled away and looked at her through his fingers. “Remember what happened _last_ time I thought like that, Gwen?”

Silently, she walked away. And he fell apart.

And he _knew_ it was selfish. Knew they should be glad for him.

But the world without Jack Harkness was darker, and emptier, and Ianto had lost _so much_ already.

So he was selfish.

Tonight, he'd been considering giving up his half-joking protests and admitting Jack lived with him now. He should have known they didn't have enough time.

And once, he'd wanted nothing more than Jack dead. Once he'd wanted to destroy Jack. Now Jack had destroyed him.

And it was over.

Footsteps broke his mind’s unrelenting focus on Jack’s pale and weak smile. Gwen.

“He said he’d miss me,” Ianto choked out into the sofa cushion, feeling— no, not a blanket— Jack’s coat laid over him, and Gwen sit down beside.

“Rhys says you can stay with us tonight,” she said. “I don’t want you alone.”

“He said he loved me, Gwen.” His words were measured, his best attempt at an even tone. The texture of the coat under his fingers was all that was properly real anymore, and he pulled it tight around himself. “He wouldn’t— he wouldn’t say that if he thought he might… might live to regret it.”

His thoughts ached, nothing more than Jack dead, Jack dead, _Jack dead_. Tosh, Owen. Lisa. _London._

Gwen rested a hand on his head. “Then you make sure he doesn’t regret it. Because I am _not_ letting him leave us like this. You hear me? You hear me, _Jack bloody Harkness?_ You don’t get to just go and die on us!”

“He wanted to.”

“Well, he can die later.” Gwen breathed sharply. “I can’t let this happen, Ianto. He can’t die now. Not _now._ ”

Once he was real enough to look at her, she smiled at him, with a sniff and her red-eyed face.

“I can’t let him be dead, Ianto."

Slowly, he rested a hand on hers.

“He had a message for you.” Ianto sat up, still clinging to the coat. “But I think… I think he can tell you himself.”

 

A few days later, a Rift spike sent through a letter. They hadn't saved much of anything, that day. They’d been bruised and battered, and there were rows of corpses neatly lined up despite being torn apart.

Signed the Doctor and Ianto Jones, it said Jack was never coming back.

Ianto had never seen Gwen give up hope before.

~

Just beating the complete absence of the giant swirling portal of doom, Gwen and Ianto crashed down onto the archives floor.

There was a quick check for all essential limbs, and then Gwen laughed. Ianto wanted to laugh to, wished he only could. Slowly, she sobered, looking at him with concern.

“I’m immortal,” he said.

Her jaw slowly fell slack. "Oh, god."

“Probably Jack’s trade,” he said, remarkably calm. There just _weren’t_ any emotions left, the ones he’d spent so long burying just gone all of a sudden. Maybe this was why Jack had made it so long. “He died. I live. Forever.”

There was only any emotion on the last word, voice wavering in something that might have been grief, or fear, or rage.

“Do you think…” Gwen reached a hand for his arm, her touch gentle. “He can’t have _meant…_ ”

“I… I don’t know.” He looked down, pulling from her hand. “Would… if it were Rhys. Would you— after all you’ve seen? After Jack, and Owen, and… and me, now.”

She was silent, looking down at the dusty floor.

“Yes,” she said abruptly. “I’m not proud of it, and he’d be right to hate me, but I would. If I was looking right at his corpse and that was the only way to have him alive again, I’d _do it._ ”

She’d seen Rhys dead before. And of all people, he knew what love did. Of course Jack had meant it. Jack was like that.

An d Gwen was about to promise to fix it, because she was like that— and she _couldn’t._ Gwen and her impossible promises, wearing her down day by day. He wasn’t about to be another of them.

No matter how much he hoped, Ianto Jones never had quite managed to stop feeling things.

“And the thing is, I _want_ to die,” he admitted. “Not— not _today._ You need me. But someday. Yesterday I thought I'd never see thirty, and... I don’t want to watch you die. And Martha, and Mickey, and— and my sister, I’ve got a sister, and she’s got _kids_ and I’ll be going to their funerals saying I’m _their_ nephew, and—” Suddenly he couldn’t hide any of it. One glance at the concern in Gwen’s eyes and it rushed out. “I’ve lost _too much_ , Gwen. Jack meant too much _,_ and Tosh and Owen are really gone now, and _Lisa_ , and… I had friends, friends at Torchwood London, Gwen. Never even went to the funerals, and— "

“You’re _not_ going to lose me,” she said, snapping him from the panic of thoughts. Grasping his shoulders tight, she made him meet her eyes. “Not anytime soon, not ever.”

“You promise.”

“Yes. I do.”

“You promised Jack was coming back, too.”

She gripped him tighter, then bowed her head and let him go. “Well. I’m promising this now,” she said slowly. “I promise you that I am going to live a long, long happy life. And so’s Martha, and so’s Mickey. Things are going to _change._ And when you’re ready, you’ll die. We’ll find a way.”

It wasn’t worth arguing with Gwen, not when he’d opened up old wounds and rubbed salt in all of them. If only his feelings really were gone.

“Do you think…” He wiped his face off, ignoring the bits of shirt that came with it. Garbage. Memories in the garbage, like blue striped coffee cups. “Even after Suzie and Owen, do you… do you think there’s something?”

“Do you?” She wiped his cheek, smiling through tears.

“Yes.” The words caught in his throat. He felt so childish saying it. “I think there’s got to be something. There are... people. I don’t care what else there is… as long as I can have them again.”

She took him by the hand. “And you will.”

“You promise.”

“I _promise.”_

 

Gwen died later that year, and Ianto never did go to the funeral.

 

~ 

 

In a bar orbiting the planet Tarsus, a man with no name was drinking his fifth hypervodka.

Nothing but his drink and the bartender mattered. Not the past, not the future, nobody and nothing.

And then a stranger sat down beside him, gave a polite order, and added “Oh, and I’ll be paying for six more hypervodkas for him. That should be enough."

Enough for what?

Human, maybe. The man’s clothes were old-fashioned, but nearly everyone went for old-fashioned these days. Most people went for something showy, a blend of eras and planets filtered through millennia of poor research. This man wore a simple three-piece suit, the cut barely conceding to modern sensibilities, but the fabric rich black and purple. Wealthy enough, but not fashionable.

“I tend to like to know people’s names _after_ they buy me a drink,” said the man, watching the glass come his way, “But the other way around works too.”

“You’ve just quit the Time Agency after they wouldn’t help you with a two-year period of amnesia." The stranger nodded at the bartender as he took his own drink. “You’ve also just come into possession of two Chula warships— if you define the term broadly enough, which you do while trying to con the Agency into buying the one you don’t want." His eyes were focused on his companion. Gray, _old_ eyes. The rest of his face barely looked thirty, and it was a little odd for someone to be unfashionable and unaging. “You don’t know who you are anymore, and I’m guessing that even drunk as the proverbial skunk you’ve put together where I’m from.”

“My future.” Hypervodka six, then. The nameless man lifted it in a toast and laughed. “To it, then?”

“And I swore we were going to have a nice, linear relationship.” The stranger sighed, and toasted his past.

“Now, about that name of yours..."

“Spoilers.” The spoiler frowned at his drink. “Doesn't sound half as good as when River says it."

“So, you’re not River then. Very helpful. I know a lot of people who aren’t River already. Hello, Not-River.”

“If you’d like a name— ”

“Well, if we’re going to have a conversation, it would be useful.”

He gave a thin smile. “I’ll take Harkness. And you, I take it, are rather between names at the moment.”

“Yeah.” The man stared down into the dregs of his vodka. “Went through enough of them at the Agency that I’m no Face of Boe anymore. Sure as hell not using one of _theirs_.”

“So I’ve given you a drink and a name, and you’ve given me absolutely nothing.”

“Well, I’ll give you something later if you— ” The bright smirk of a grin slowly faded, and he turned back to the seventh hypervodka. “No. No. I’m not doing this.”

Harkness nearly put an arm around _Jack's_ shoulder, but pulled back. No. No, he wasn't doing that. "Well, actually, you _do_ give me that something later, so."

“Isn’t that a ‘spoiler’?” He raised an eyebrow and sipped his drink. So his future contained sex with attractive rich men who bought him drinks. He had a future. That part, he couldn't quite believe.

“We’re talking about you here. You get back on your feet.” Harkness smiled, seeming to think of days long gone or still to come. “Whoever you were— and I’m not telling you, because that _is_ a spoiler— you’re a good man. You’re going to be an amazing man.”

“What I did _is_ who I am. You may know my future, but you sure as _hell_ don’t know my past.” On to number eight. “And besides, flattery is getting you nowhere.”

“It’s really not flattery.” Harkness sighed, and took a tight grip on his companion’s shoulder. His eyes were so _old_. “The things I’ve gone through for you. By all rights, I should hate you. And I did. I just couldn't manage it for long." Under a sharp gaze, he downed his drink and studied intently the glitter in the countertop.. “I… shouldn’t be saying this. Shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

“Then go.”

They met eyes.

“I don’t forgive you for... what you’ll do. I’ll be honest. I can’t. I don’t _have_ to. I still think— I’ve always thought— you—  you’re _kind._ I like to think I got to know you. Past and future. Well enough to say with complete faith that you are a good man. And I wanted you to know that now. Today.” 

Hypervodka nine downed, the man stared into his empty glass. The future was staring him down, eyes so honest and wide, raising urges to punch or kiss or apologize. To push him away or break down crying. "Then you're stupid."

“Yeah, probably.” Harkness smiled and downed his own drink. “And sentimental. Slightly drunk. And you— well, you’ve never listened, and you never will.”

“That’s because you’re _wrong._ ” Or was it ten? Counting could be left to the sober people. And the paying people.

“Yeah, came to terms with that a long time ago.” Harkness rolled his eyes. “And you’re a stubborn bastard who never admits he can be wrong or that _everything in the entire universe_ isn’t his fault. You're a very contradictory person."

The man shrugged, and didn't contradict. “So, you’re just going to buy me some drinks and tell me things I’ll never listen to?”

“And I come all the way from your future to do this, I know. I was just passing through. Saw you sulking, couldn't let it go. Like you said. I'm stupid."

Ten or eleven— nearly to the end of Harkness’ charity— was slowly sipped. “So,” he said softly, “what’ll I do to you?”

They were time travelers. They knew better. It wasn’t a question you asked, and it wasn’t a question you answered. No good could come of it. But their eyes met.

“Hope,” he said. “You take away my hope.”

“Hope.” He stared down at his glass, barely a drop left. Maybe, though it was hopeless, he could escape that future. Save this Harkness. He’d _try._ “I think I had that once. And, by the way, _no wonder_ I never listen if all your pep talks are like this.”

“Last one,” Harkness said, passing a coin to the bartender as a hypervodka made its way down. He was slow to speak again. “The Time Agency. Hell?”

“I lost friends there.” This was the last drink, and so soon Harkness meant to be gone. He’d be alone again. Not forever, but near enough. “I did things I’ll never make up for. Good riddance to them.”

“And… your partner. Ex-partner. What do you think of him?”

Out the corner of the man’s eyes, Harkness was stirring his drink and watching the crowd of the bar go through, living their lives.

“I think… I think he’s a bastard who doesn’t give a damn about anyone. Nothing means anything to him. Never does the damn job. Left me to do all the real work while he nearly got himself killed _enjoying_ everything. Think he rubbed off on me a bit too much.” He could feel himself tensing, ready to slam into the bar if the man from the future asked him about the past one more time. Damn it, he was here to _escape_ the past. Here to escape the future.

“If you could change things,” said Harkness, still avoiding the man’s eyes, “Never join the Agency. Never meet him. Would you?”

And the man thought about what the Time Agency and that damn partner of his had done. Everything he'd done and seen, and who he'd been before. He thought about laughing over corpses and crying over them. He'd be a better man, without the Agency and without that partner. What good were they? They’d sent him here, to this bar, weighed down by _them_ and—

“No.”

“And you love him.” His hands weren’t steady, tugging down the cuffs of that shirt. Purple Janescian silk, a soft luminescence in the half-light.

The man downed the hypervodka. Yes. “He didn’t care. But when _I_ did… Cared too much, cared about the wrong thing, the wrong person— everyone else thought I was just some dumb backwater kid. Even the ones who didn’t used to tell me to just... move on. Grow a thicker skin. He didn’t. He… He was no saint. But his one good quality was the one _I_ needed."

Harkness reached a hand for the man. They held tight.

“You care,” he said, gently. “I don’t think I’ve ever managed to meet anyone who managed to care so much about everything. And it hurt you so much. You _could_ have given up. I’d never have blamed you. And for a while there, I think you did try to. But then… I don’t know. You decided that you’d rather go through all of it than go through not caring." 

He was looking again. Looking like he was in love. “I know you’re trying not to care. But you can’t. And it can't stop hurting, either. But… you made me care again. Despite everything, I'm glad you did. It’s all _worth_ it... even the mistakes. I just want you to know that, someday. That being you was worthwhile."

There was no way to get to Harkness' future from here. He was wrong, or he was lying, because the man he talked about couldn't exist. “I still don’t have hope. I still hate you for what you did. But it was worth it. Knowing you… was worth it.”

The tension between them was stretched taut, emotions ready to break silent promises. “I just wish you could have cared a little less,” Harkness choked out.

The man moved to speak. He stopped at what might have been a glimmer of tears. There was nothing he could say to that. “Well. I won’t buy you any more drinks. Haven’t got the money.” And he stood, pushed the barstool back in, and walked away.

“You really think that’s—” The man paused, realizing that calling into the crowd was useless.

Standing still in the bustle of bar business, there was a man in dark purple, with tears in his old, gray eyes. Harkness bowed his head and turned to make his way out, but the man shoved more than he owed onto the counter and pushed through until he grabbed at the right sleeve. “You really think… that’s what I’m like?”

Elbows and tentacles jostled at them. They held hands. “I try so hard to get you to understand, and you finally figure it out _years earlier._ You care _too much_ about everyone. And it is _beautiful,_ Ja— I mean, uh…” Harkness ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s ignore that last syllable.”

The man— Jack, or Janet, maybe— smiled. “You know,” he said conversationally, “I really do love that suit.”

Harkness snapped to the man’s face, slowly matching the smile himself. “Yeah. Always did like your taste, too.”

“Thanks. So, got any plans for the night? I do kinda owe you that something...”

“Heading on a ship in the morning,” Harkness said, holding hands almost too tight as they slowly navigated to the hallway. “I might just know you.”

“Really? I’d never have guessed.”

Just after his jacket hit the floor, as Jack was pushing him up against the wall, Ianto finally managed the words. "We lived together."

Much later, pressed into a too-small bunk, Jack— not Jack, not yet— whispered "Things’ll be better this time around."

 

That morning, Ianto Jones— teenage shoplifter, researcher at Torchwood One, leader of Torchwood Three, destroyer of Torchwood Four, intergalactic tramp, occasional drunkard— Ianto Jones, the only man to walk out of the Fires of Peladon, leader of the Freedom Fifteen, ANJI revolutionary, crewman of the _Nosferatu II,_ soldier at Demon's Run— Ianto Jones, for the first time in centuries— he stood and watched the ship carrying the man who would be Jack Harkness on towards his death.

 

And he really did want to believe it was worth it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Based off http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/110510863990/a-is-immortal-and-has-been-living-for-a-while-b
> 
> (6/14/15: slightly edited for formatting errors and authorial nitpicking. A sequel should be coming along eventually (yay!), but there's a lot of ground I'd like to cover. So... more like two or three sequels. At least one of which will hopefully materialize this year. Writing is hard.)


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